to have and to hold office | part I
congressman!Bucky Barnes x widow!reader
summary. After a late-night in New Orleans, Congressman Bucky Barnes and his chief of staff wake up legally married. An annulment should be simple, but unfortunately, nothing about their lives is simple. With Bucky's reputation on the line and her past threatening to resurface, staying married starts to look like the safest option. It's only supposed to be temporary. Public appearances, a convincing story, and a quiet divorce once the headlines fade. But fake marriage is harder when everyone else believes it. Especially when Bucky is already in love with his wife. word count. 6.9k warnings. alcohol/intoxication, drunk decision making, fake marriage setup, friends with questionable boundaries
masterlist | series masterlist | next chapter
Congressman James Buchanan Barnes moved through the warm New Orleans night with the posture of a man trying very hard not to look like a man who had just spent four hours shaking hands with donors, veterans, reporters, lobbyists, local officials, and one woman who asked if his metal arm was “cold to the touch.”
You had nearly handled that one yourself.
Bucky had stopped you with one hand around your wrist, gently, but firm, before you could ask the woman if her personality was cold to the touch. He had not even looked at you when he did it, just caught your wrist, answered politely, and moved on.
Annoying.
Very annoying.
You stumbled half a step on the uneven sidewalk and immediately cursed whoever had created cobblestones—probably some medieval peasant—and cursed yourself for consuming so much bourbon at the event itself and the afterparty.
“You all right?”
Bucky’s hand moved to your elbow.
You looked down at his hand, then up at him. “You asking as my boss, my congressman, or the man responsible for making me put up with all these rich assholes for hours?”
“I’m askin’ as your friend. Should I be worried?”
“You should always be worried. S’what makes you such an effective public servant.”
He huffed, the closest he usually came to laughing in public.
The hotel was two streets behind you, all soft golden lighting and polished donors and tiny crab cakes that had been arranged on porcelain spoons. You had stolen one of the spoons simply because you were fond of the size and shape, and it now resided securely in the band of your bra.
You had handed Mia your glass of champagne when you noticed Bucky was making that face he made whenever too many people thanked him for his service. He looked like he might turn to stone.
Mia Santos, his communications director, had not asked questions. She was good that way. Also, likely, afraid of you. Healthy.
Now the streets of New Orleans spread out before you in humid, glowing layers. Neon signs illuminated puddles left from an earlier storm. Music leaked out of bars and down avenues. It was too much, in a way that made you feel like the city itself was saying make worse choices.
And who were you to not embrace the local culture?
“I want it on record,” you said, the world spinning around you, “that I was doing just fine before you convinced me to have those last two drinks at the afterparty.”
Bucky snorted. “Trust me, you didn’t need encouragement. You got here all on your own.”
“Rude.”
“Accurate.”
“Two things can be true.”
His eyes slid toward you, lips almost curving again.
Bucky Barnes looked unfairly good illuminated by the lamplights of the French Quarter.
This was not new information. You had known him for years. Seen him at campaign stops, hearings, office crises, hospital visits, safehouses, and one unfortunate charity softball game where he had refused to hit the ball hard because he was scared of killing the pitcher. You vaguely recalled yourself giving him ill-advised advice, something like do it for the children!
You had seen him in suits. In tactical gear. In rolled-up shirtsleeves, tie loose, hair falling into his eyes while you yelled at him for trying to rewrite his own remarks fifteen minutes before delivery.
You were not impressed by Bucky Barnes. Not generally. Not physically.
Usually.
Tonight, however, the humidity had done something catastrophic to his hair, and his shirt collar was open beneath his dark suit jacket, his tie had vanished sometime in the night.
And you were drunk. Pleasantly, dangerously warm. The kind of drunk that made your limbs loose, your mouth faster than your judgement. Bucky had been drinking too.
You knew because you had watched him accept bourbon from three separate people, nurse the first glass, finish the second, and then a third. He seemed looser than usual. Softer around the edges. He had laughed at two of your jokes without pretending it was a cough.
“You’re smiling,” he said.
You blinked. “No. No, I’m not.”
“You are.”
He guided you around a dip in the sidewalk. You noticed, and pretended not to.
“You keep doing that,” you muttered.
“What?”
“Acting like I can’t walk.”
“Yeah, well, m’not sure you can right now. You nearly fought a curb.”
“The curb started it.”
“And you threatened a shrimp tower.”
“You should’ve heard what they were saying to me!”
He shook his head, but he was smiling now. Fully smiling, almost. The real version, not the press version. Not the polite congressional one with the careful mouth and the distant eyes. This one showed up rarely and usually by accident.
You tried to commit it to memory in your drunken state.
You were interrupted by brass, loud and bright. Trumpet, trombone, drum. A little ragged, a little joyous, moving closer from the cross street ahead.
You stopped.
Bucky stopped because you had stopped, and because he was trained by now to treat your sudden stillness as either tactical assessment or impending nonsense.
You held up one hand. “Do you hear that?”
“I hear a lot of things.”
The music got louder as the procession turned the corner.
It was not quite a parade. It was too small and too disorderly. A brass band moved down the street with a dozen people trailing behind it, waving napkins, cups, and what appeared to be a feather boa in the colors of a tropical bird. Someone wore a sash that said Divorced and Delighted! Someone else wore a veil. Three women were laughing so hard they could barely walk.
You inhaled.
“No,” Bucky said, instantly.
“I’m engaging with the public.”
“You’re trespassing into someone else’s event.”
“Cultural immersion.”
The procession drew closer, and the woman in the divorce sash spotted you, gasped at Bucky, then pointed at him with her plastic cup.
“You!” She shouted. “You’re the congressman!”
Bucky’s shoulders shifted, the public face moving into place.
You hated it. Not always, sometimes it was necessary. Useful, even. You had built half his career around understanding when Bucky Barnes needed to be human and when he needed to be untouchable. But tonight, after hours of people mining his trauma for a handshake, you did not want him to have to become Congressman Barnes again.
You stepped in front of him and pointed back at the woman.
“And you are divorced and delighted. Congratulations!”
The woman stared at you for a second. Then she screamed with laughter.
Bucky’s hand closed around the back of your arm, not stopping you, just there. The woman grabbed your free hand.
“Come on, baby, we’re celebrating!”
“What are we celebrating?” You asked.
“Me leaving Dennis!”
The woman pulled you into the moving cluster before Bucky could object, and because Bucky Barnes had survived assassins, aliens, Hydra, and congressional hearings, but had not yet developed a defense against you making delighted eye contact with a newly divorced woman holding a plastic cup, he followed.
The brass band surged around you. You laughed because it was impossible not to. Someone shoved a napkin into your hand, someone else draped beads over your head. A man with a tambourine passed near you, and you reached for it on instinct.
Bucky caught your wrist.
“No.”
“I wasn’t going to steal it!”
He gave you a look.
“I was just going to… redistribute it.”
“That sounds like stealing.”
“Welcome to government, Congressman.”
The man with the tambourine overheard you and grinned. “You want it?”
“Yes!” You said.
“No.” Bucky said.
The man handed it to you, and you lifted it above your head in victory.
Bucky stared at the sky like he was asking God for backup.
You shook the tambourine badly. Immediately, aggressively, with confidence that was disproportionate to your skill.
“You’re off beat,” Bucky winced.
“It’s a counter-rhythm."
Bucky leaned closer, voice low near your ear so you could hear him over the band. “You’re going to get us kicked out of the procession.”
Your skin prickled at the warmth of his breath. Rude. You shook the tambourine directly beside his shoulder to cover whatever your face had just done.
The procession rolled forward, and you let it take you. For a few minutes, there was no policy. No Bucky Barnes brand problem. No veterans’ bill. No old aliases. No list of things you had done and things you would never fully outrun.
There was just music and heat and Bucky’s hand hovering near your back every time you veered too close to the street. Annoyingly chivalrous.
“You know you don’t have to keep saving me from traffic,” you said, glancing at him.
“I do if you keep trying to join it. You’re never allowed to drink bourbon again.”
“You don’t get to tell me what to do, Sarge,” you said, giving him a playful mock salute.
His eyebrows lifted.
Ah.
You had surprised him. You liked surprising Bucky. He spent so much of his life expecting the worst that surprising him with something stupid felt almost virtuous.
“You’re making me regret leaving the hotel.”
“I’m making you a man of the people.”
“I was already elected.”
“Barely.”
“You ran the campaign.”
“And I’m kept up at night by the margins.”
He looked at you for a second, eyes soft with amusement.
You felt something in your chest tilt. No. Absolutely not. Bad chest.
You lifted the tambourine again. “I should return this.”
Bucky just nodded.
You brought the tambourine back to the man who accepted it solemnly.
“You did terrible,” he told you.
“Why, thank you.”
He laughed and kissed your hand.
Bucky’s expression did something interesting. You did not know what to call it. It was not jealousy, obviously not. Bucky was not jealous because a man with a tambourine kissed your hand in a street parade celebrating a Dennis-based divorce. That would be absurd.
Still, when you returned to his side, he was staring at the man with mild suspicion. And when the parade moved on, he did not immediately follow. Neither did you. The music drifted down the street, taking sequins and beads and most of your remaining sense with it.
You stood beneath a wrought-iron balcony dripping with plants, the street damp beneath your shoes, the air heavy and sweet. A neon sign buzzed across the street. Somewhere, a saxophone moved lazily through a melody that sounded like it had been awake for a hundred years.
You looked down, one heel strap had come loose.
“Traitor,” you mumbled to your shoe.
Bucky followed your gaze. “Need help?”
“No.”
You bent down. The street tilted. Bucky caught your elbow.
“I had that,” you said.
“You were about to headbutt a mailbox.”
“Yeah, well, it looked at me funny.”
He crouched before you could object. You stared at him. This was bad. Bucky Barnes on one knee in front of you on a wet New Orleans sidewalk, dark hair falling forward, one hand gentle around your ankle while he fixed the strap of your heel.
You blinked several times, the bourbon offering you several unhelpful thoughts. You rejected all of them. Mostly.
“This is very Cinderella,” you said.
He did not look up. “You calling me the prince?”
“The footman. You’re definitely the footman. The prince had poor vetting procedures.”
“He tried a shoe on every woman in the kingdom.”
“Exactly. Inefficient and weird.”
Bucky fastened the strap and stood. “There.”
He looked at you then. There was something odd in his face. Something still and warm and gone before you could examine it.
“Come on,” he said.
“Where?”
“Hotel.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“The night is young!”
“And I’m old!”
You snorted. “Yeah, tell me something I don’t know.”
“I’ll be carrying you back if we don’t get back soon.”
“I can walk just fine.”
“For now.”
You resumed walking, mostly because standing still made the sidewalk behave suspiciously. Bucky fell into step beside you. The street curved ahead into a slightly darker block. A small sign hung near the corner, hand-painted and purple, advertising ghost tours every hour until 2 a.m.
You stopped again.
“No,” Bucky said.
“You keep saying that. What are you, allergic to fun?”
“I’m not allergic to fun. No ghost tour.”
“That’s exactly what someone allergic to fun would say. You’re afraid.”
“I’ve fought actual ghosts.”
You paused. “Have you?”
He looked at you. “I’ve fought a lot of things. The categories get blurry.”
“That is either very sad or very metal.”
“Both.”
You were already moving toward the cluster of tourists gathered beneath the sign. Bucky sighed behind you.
The ghost tour lasted eleven minutes. Not because the tour was eleven minutes long, but because at minute nine, the guide said something historically inaccurate about tuberculosis, and Bucky, who apparently had limits after all, muttered, “That’s not how quarantine worked.”
You heard him. Unfortunately, so did the guide.
“What was that sir?”
Bucky’s face went blank. You stepped in immediately.
“My uncle is just passionate about public health history.”
Bucky looked at you. You looked back. Uncle? Why had you said that? Probably because “boss” would sound weird.
The guide looked uncertain. “Well, as I was saying—”
“The date’s wrong too,” Bucky said quieter, but still audible.
The guide’s smile tightened.
“Stop heckling the ghost man,” you hissed at Bucky.
“He’s wrong.”
“It’s a ghost tour!”
The guide squinted at the two of you. “Wait, did either of you pay for this tour?”
“Great tour!” You announced. “We’ll leave a five-star–”
“Three stars, max,” Bucky grumbled beside you.
“--review on Yelp. Terrifying. Educational. We’re leaving.”
The guide looked relieved. Bucky let you drag him away.
He waited until you had crossed half the block before he said, “Uncle?”
“Well,” you said, glancing up at him, “no one would believe ‘boyfriend.’”
“Why wouldn’t they believe that?”
You pointed at him, and then at yourself. “Look at you, you’re too old to be my boyfriend.”
He made a face. “Don’t think m’too old to be your boyfriend.”
“Aren’t you like, 120 or something?”
“110,” he grumbled.
You clapped your hands together. “Practically a spring chicken.”
“I don’t look 110.”
“Yeah, that cryostasis chamber did wonders for your skin,” you quipped sarcastically.
“People would believe that we’re dating.”
“Sarge, I’m so youthful. I don’t know, you could be, like, my hot sugar daddy maybe.”
“Hot?”
You felt your cheeks flush. “Yeah—like temperature wise.”
“In March?”
“It’s the humidity. I was mocking you.”
“Were you?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re bad at it. You called me hot.”
You stopped walking and turned to fix him with a look. “James Buchanan Barnes.”
His eyebrows lifted.
Using his full name was usually reserved for near-felonies, bad press, and once when he had tried to skip breakfast before a five-hour hearing.
“Don’t weaponize drunk syntax against me.”
“Drunk syntax.”
“Yes, the grammar of the impaired is inadmissible.”
“In what court?”
“My court.”
The corners of his lips pulled upward. Your stomach did something you did not authorize.
“You’re smiling,” you pointed out.
“Yeah.”
“Stop.”
“Can’t.”
You narrowed your eyes at him. He looked back, warm and amused and too handsome beneath the neon glow of a sign advertising haunted cocktails.
You turned and walked away, advancing in a different direction. Unfortunately, your different direction brought you directly to a small white building with a pink sign in the window.
CRESCENT CITY VOWS. WALK-INS WELCOME. OPEN 24/7.
You slowed. Bucky slowed beside you.
The chapel was narrow and bright, wedged between a closed souvenir shop and a bar emitting aggressive karaoke. Plastic flowers filled the front window. A poster advertised packages: Classic, Jazz It Up, Voodoo Romance.
You stared.
Then you started laughing.
“Absolutely not,” Bucky said.
You pointed at the sign. “Jazz it up!”
“No. We’re leaving.”
“Imagine getting married somewhere between a karaoke bar and a T-shirt shop.”
“People do.”
“Brave people do.”
“Drunk people.”
You stepped closer to the window, peering inside. The lobby had black-and-white tile, a small counter, a display of rings, and a woman behind the desk reading a paperback.
You looked ridiculous together. You in a cocktail dress with beads around your neck; Bucky in a dark suit, tie missing, hair wrecked by humidity.
“Y’know,” you said, “we’d probably be good at a marriage.”
Bucky went still. “Would we?”
“Obviously.”
“Obviously,” he repeated.
“Yes. I already run your life.”
“That’s marriage?”
“Basically,” you continued, counting on your fingers. “We share enemies. We agree on most moral issues and disagree productively on methods. You carry my shoes when necessary. I know how you take your coffee.”
“You insult how I take my coffee.”
“Because I care. Who even puts that much sugar in their coffee, James?”
“You never had to experience rationing.”
You looked up at him. Mistake.
His eyes were on you in a way that did not feel like a joke. It was hard to tell with Bucky. He had layers. Like trauma onion. Or trauma lasagna.
You nudged his shoulder. “What, you don’t think I’d make a good wife?”
Your question had been a joke. It was the kind of joke you made because it was absurd. Because the idea of being anyone’s wife seemed like something that happened to other people, ordinary people, people with normal childhoods and fewer hidden knives.
Besides, Bucky was your best friend. Or at least, one of them. Or the person you trusted most besides Yelena. Bucky thinking of you as a wife would be objectively funny. But he did not laugh.
He looked at you for a long second and said, “I think you’d be impossible.”
You scoffed. “That was not the question.”
“You’d be terrifying.”
“Still not the question.”
The chapel door opened, a young couple stumbled out laughing, both wearing cheap plastic crowns. Behind them, the desk woman called, “Congratulations. Remember, the license copy is the ugly one.”
You stared after them, then looked at Bucky.
“Do you think these are legally binding?”
“Yes.”
“Really?”
“It’s a licensed chapel. There’s a registration number on the door.”
You looked. Of course there was. Of course he noticed.
“Sexy,” you said. “You and your regulatory literacy.”
He stared.
“Temperature-wise,” you added.
His smile returned. “Sure.”
“What package would you pick?” You asked.
“None.”
“Do you need me to get your EpiPen for your allergy to fun?”
“This again? I’m not picking a wedding package.”
“Hypothetically.”
“No.”
“C’mon, hotshot.”
“Hotshot?”
You shrugged. “Expanding my lexicon. Classic, Jazz It Up, or Voodoo Romance?”
“Classic.”
“Obviously.”
“You asked.”
“No, that’s the correct answer. You’re a practical man.”
He glanced at you. “What would you pick?”
“Voodoo Romance.”
He stared.
“Kidding!” You grinned. “Jazz It Up, obviously.”
Maybe it was the bourbon. Maybe it was the music still rattling in your bones. Maybe it was the way Bucky had looked at you. Maybe it was the fact that for one weird, suspended second, being his wife did not sound like a joke so much as a dare issued by the universe.
“If we got married, Sam would kill you,” you said lightly.
Bucky turned back slowly. “Me?”
“Yes, you’re the man. You’d be blamed.”
“So much for feminism.”
“My feminism is situational.”
“Yelena would kill me too.”
You nodded. “Yelena would kill us both. But she’d start with you.”
“Good to know.”
“She’d be very hurt about missing cake.”
“There’s no cake.”
“That would make her angrier.”
Bucky looked at the chapel. Then at you. His face had gone quiet again.
“You wanna?” he asked.
You laughed, because obviously. Because that was the correct response when your best friend, your boss, the congressman whose schedule you managed and reputation you protected and emotional constipation you had elevated into an operational challenge, asked if you wanted to get married outside a New Orleans chapel after midnight.
You laughed.
But he did not. He smiled, small, almost private.
Your laughter thinned.
“What?”
“Marry me,” he said.
The city tilted.
“You’re joking.”
“Am I?”
“Yes.”
Bucky stepped closer, not enough to crowd you. He never crowded unless there was danger. He understood space better than most people because so much of his had once been taken from him. He stood near you but left air between you, enough for the decision to sit there by itself.
“Bucky, you cannot propose to your chief of staff outside a 24/7 chapel.”
“Why not?”
“Because Sam would develop a stress rash.”
“He’ll live.”
“Because Yelena would turn your arm into modern art.”
“She’ll try.”
“Because I’m drunk.”
“I know.”
“And you’re drunk.”
His eyes flicked over your face. “Right.”
You frowned at him. “This is stupid. You’re supposed to talk me out of bad ideas.”
“I do that all day.”
“And now?”
His eyes moved to the chapel sign again, then back to you.
“Maybe I’m off the clock.”
You stared at him. The problem was that Bucky rarely asked for things. He accepted assignments. Responsibilities, burdens, coffee he hated because you handed it to him. He did not ask for comfort or attention, did not ask for help until absolutely cornered, and even then, he phrased it like a logistical update.
But now he was asking. Maybe as a joke or a drunken impulse. His face gave you nothing obvious. Or maybe it gave you too much and you did not know how to read it.
“You really want to get married?”
“It would be operationally efficient.”
You lifted a finger. “If we do this–”
“We’re doing this?”
“I said if.”
“Okay.”
“If we do this, we pick the Jazz It Up package.”
“Obviously.”
“And we tell no one.”
“Sam will find out.”
“Yeah, because you can’t keep secrets from that guy.”
His gaze dropped to your hands. “Do we need rings?”
“Probably not.”
“If we’re doing this, we’re doing it right.”
“I forgot how old-fashioned you are.”
Bucky reached for the door and opened the door for you. “You coming?”
You should have turned around, should have gone back to the hotel. You should have drunk three glasses of water, removed your makeup, gone to bed, and woken up grateful that the worst thing you had done all night was steal a tambourine.
Instead, you walked into the chapel.
Cool air hit your skin. The lobby smelled like artificial roses, lemon cleaner, and stale champagne. The woman behind the counter looked up from her paperback, took in your dress, Bucky’s suit, the beads around your neck.
You lifted your chin with all the dignity you had left.
“Jazz It Up package, please.”
Bucky exhaled behind you. It might have been a laugh. The woman set down her book and slid a form across the counter.
You looked back at Bucky. His eyes were already on you. For a second, neither of you moved.
Then you smiled, because this was absurd, and you were drunk, and he was your best friend, and the world had made very little sense for a very long time.
“Come on, hotshot,” you said, picking up the pen.
Bucky woke up before the alarm. He always did. It did not matter what time he went to bed, or how late the night had stretched, or how little sleep his body had been given. He came awake all at once.
The hotel room was dim. The curtains were half closed, but a thin slice of morning had made it through the gap and cut across the carpet. Somewhere below, New Orleans was already waking up. He could hear a truck backing up, voices on the sidewalk, a door shutting in the hallway.
Beside him, you were asleep.
You had started the night on your side of the bed, or at least what had become your side. At some point after that, you had drifted diagonally, one knee bent, one arm shoved beneath your pillow, hair spread over the white case like evidence of a fight you had won.
Bucky lay still and watched you breathe. He knew he should move. He knew he should get up, call Sam, call legal, call somebody who could tell him what shape the fallout might take and how fast it would come.
But for a few seconds, he did nothing.
The room was quiet. You were asleep beside him. His wedding ring was on his hand. It was the kind of thing a man could get used to if he were stupid.
He was not stupid. He had done plenty of stupid things. There was a difference.
He lifted his left hand and stared at the ring. It looked wrong there. Cheap, silver, too bright, already scratched along the bottom where it had caught against the hotel keycard last night.
You had chosen it for him. You had stood at the counter, swaying slightly, studying the little velvet tray as if selecting equipment for a mission.
He remembered everything.
The street parade. The tambourine. The chapel door. The way you had looked back at him right before you stepped inside, grinning like the whole night had been built for you personally by a god with bad judgement.
You made a sound in your sleep, small and irritated, and dragged the blanket higher over your shoulder. Your ring caught the light when your hand shifted across the pillow.
The marriage certificate was folded on the desk beneath the chapel brochure, which advertised vow renewals and discount photography. He had meant to put it somewhere safe. Instead, he had put it on top of the minibar menu and gone to bed beside his wife.
His wife.
Bucky closed his eyes. That was not a word he got to keep.
You stirred beside him.
Bucky opened his eyes and turned his head.
Your brow pulled together first. Then your nose wrinkled. Then your whole face folded into a grimace, as if consciousness had personally offended you.
Your eyes opened, and you turned your head very slowly. He watched the memory arrive, not all at once. In pieces. First confusion, then pain, because your hangover was clearly taking up most of your skull. Then recognition.
Your hand came up in front of your face. You sat up so fast the blanket slid to your waist.
“Oh my God.”
Bucky pushed himself up on one elbow. “Morning.”
You turned on him.
“Do not.”
“Okay.”
You looked down at yourself, still wearing the slip dress from last night, wrinkled now and twisted slightly at one strap. You looked over at him. He was still in his trousers and shirt, though the shirt was unbuttoned at the collar and his jacket had been thrown over the desk chair.
Your eyes narrowed.
“Did we—”
“No.”
Your shoulders dropped with visible relief. “Okay.”
“I stayed on top of the covers for half the night.”
You rubbed both hands over your face. “Did you?”
“Yeah.”
“What happened to the other half?”
“You stole the covers and then threatened me when I tried to get them back.”
You threw the blanket off and stood. Too fast, you swayed. Bucky was out of bed before he decided to move, his hand catching your elbow.
You looked at it. He let go.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re hungover.”
You crossed the room with great purpose and slightly poor balance. You lifted the chapel brochure first, squinted at it, and then found the folded certificate beneath. You opened it. Read it. Read it again.
“James.”
There it was. His real name in your voice. Not “Barnes,” not “Congressman.” James meant one of two things: danger or trouble. Possibly both.
Bucky stood beside the bed. “Yeah?”
“This is real.”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t say yeah like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I just asked if you wanted toast.”
He glanced at the certificate. “It’s real.”
You looked back at the paper, then at the brochure, then at your ring.
You turned sharply toward the bathroom, stopped, turned back toward the desk, then turned again toward the minibar.
Bucky watched you make a small, silent circle of panic.
Bucky crossed the room and started the coffee machine. You stood behind him, quiet now except for the small sound of your breathing and the occasional miserable swallow that told him the bourbon was exacting revenge.
Behind him, you said, “We need an annulment.”
He watched the coffee drip into the cup. “Maybe.”
“Not maybe. Definitely. We get an annulment. Today. Or as soon as legally possible. What are Louisiana annulment laws? God, why do I not know Louisiana annulment laws?”
Bucky handed you a mug of coffee. “Because it hasn’t come up.”
“It is up now.”
“Yeah.”
You pointed at him. “Stop saying yeah.”
He pressed his lips together.
You paced. “Ground. We need grounds. Intoxication. Lack of sound mind. No consummation. No intent. Joke intent.”
“Joke intent is probably not in the statute.”
“I will make it case law.”
He almost smiled.
You saw it.
“Do not smile.”
“I’m not smiling.”
“You almost did. Why are you so calm?”
He breathed in slowly. “Because one of us should be.”
“No, I reject that. You should be panicking. This is your career.”
“It’s also yours.”
“I’m staff, I can be replaced.”
“No.”
The word left him before he could soften it.
You blinked.
“No,” he repeated.
Your face changed in a way he hated. Like you had heard something you were not prepared for. You looked away first.
“Fine,” you said, “staff can be investigated, disgraced, and fired.”
“That’s not better.”
“It’s accurate.”
Bucky crossed his arms. “An annulment might not stay quiet.”
You stilled.
This was the part he had to handle carefully. Not because you could not handle the facts. You could handle the facts. You liked facts. You collected them.
You turned back slowly. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, if we file fast, someone notices.”
“People file annulments all the time.”
“Not sitting congressmen married to their chief of staff.”
You stared at him.
“If this gets out as a marriage and annulment, that’s one story. If it gets out as a private marriage, that’s another.”
You laughed once. “You think secret marriage is quieter than annulment?”
“I think secret marriage sounds intentional.”
“It was not intentional.”
“No one needs to know that.”
You opened your mouth, then closed it. He saw the gears turning now, the panic not disappearing, but making room for strategy. You began seeing angles, headlines, risks, who would leak what.
Your eyes dropped to the certificate again, Bucky holding it loosely in his hand.
“People are going to figure out who I am and say I manipulated you,” you said.
Bucky’s jaw tightened. “No.”
“Bucky,” you sighed, “you don’t get to decide what people say.”
“I get to decide what I answer.”
“It’s not the same.”
He knew that. Still, the thought of someone using you as the next weapon against him made something old and violent shift beneath his ribs.
You turned away and walked to the window. You pulled the curtain aside just enough to look out. Morning light hit your face, and he saw how tired you were under the jokes. How tight your mouth had gone.
“The chapel had cameras.”
“Probably.”
“The clerk remembers us.”
“Definitely.”
“If this gets out as a drunken annulment, it becomes…” You paused, searching for the word.
“Blood in the water,” he supplied.
You nodded once. “And we just established credibility for you. The press would have a field day with this… but staying married? That’s insane.”
“It doesn’t have to be forever.”
Your eyes met his.
Bucky made himself keep going. “We wait. Talk to counsel. Figure out what’s already public, what isn’t. If nothing comes out, we handle it quietly. If something does, we control what we can.”
“You sound like me.”
“Believe it or not, I listen to you sometimes.”
You sat down on the edge of the bed, coffee in one hand, the other pressed to your forehead.
“I cannot believe I did this.”
“We did this.”
You snorted. “That’s generous.”
“It’s true.”
“You were drunk, too.” You closed your eyes. “What are you thinking?”
He took a seat in the chair at the desk. “I’m thinking we need to call Sam.”
“Absolutely not.”
“He’ll find out. He’ll be mad if he hears from someone else.”
“He’ll be mad because we got married in a discount chapel.” You pointed at him. “You call him.”
“I was going to.”
“You handle him.”
“I will.”
“And you do not let him yell at me.”
“I would never.”
“I need a shower.”
You set your coffee on the nightstand and disappeared into the bathroom to hopefully wash the events of last night off.
Bucky picked up his phone from the nightstand. There were already too many messages, most from his staff, several from Sam, and one unknown number with a photo attached that Bucky did not open.
His stomach dropped. One crisis at a time. He dialed Sam.
Sam answered on the third ring.
“Please tell me,” Sam said, without greeting, “that the photo I just saw is fake.”
Bucky closed his eyes. “Morning, Sam.”
“No morning. I asked you a question.”
“What picture?” Bucky asked.
Sam laughed once. It was not amused. “What picture, he says. Man, there is a photo of you and your chief of staff walking into a chapel in New Orleans at what looks like drunk o’clock in the morning.”
“My wife.”
Sam paused.
“Your what?”
“A photo of my wife and I in New Orleans.”
Silence. And then:
“Are you an idiot or are you just fuckin’ stupid.”
“I’m going to hang up,” Bucky grumbled.
“Is she there right now?”
“In the shower.”
“Alright, then answer me this. What is wrong with you?”
“I was serious about hanging up.”
“Bucky, I’m your friend. Probably your best friend, maybe your only friend—”
“That’s definitely not true.”
Sam continued. “---and as your best and only friend, I have to tell you, this is your most stupid idea yet. And trust me, you make plenty of those. What were you thinking?”
Bucky ran a hand through his hair. “We clearly weren’t thinking. We had had too many drinks, and—”
“Buck, we both know that’s bullshit. Your super soldier metabolism or whatever doesn’t let you get that drunk off of a couple drinks. Maybe she had too many drinks, but we both know you knew better. So y’wanna try again, with the truth this time?”
Bucky went silent. What was wrong with him? He had definitely been sober enough to know better. But you thought he was on the same page as you, and he had let you believe that. Bucky knew it was messed up, but how the hell would he explain to you that he married you perfectly sober?
“I… I-I don’t know, Sam,” Bucky finally admitted. “It was stupid, I know that. We were just walking around after the summit, and—I don’t know, man—we just stumbled upon this chapel. And she gave me this look, and Jesus, I don’t know how to say no to her when she looks at me like that.”
“You didn’t try something like ‘hey, you’re drunk, you’re my chief of staff, and I’m sober enough to know this is a terrible idea’? You didn’t try that?”
“Well, gee, Sam, wish you had been there—”
“Yeah, loverboy, I wish I had been there too to knock some sense into that thick skull of yours.”
Bucky scowled at the phone. “Sam, I know I fucked up.”
“Then tell her the truth!”
“Sam, I can’t. She’ll… she’ll freak out. And get an annulment, and the press will have a field day with it.”
“You’re worried about the press? Bucky, you lied to her.”
“I didn’t lie, I just…” Bucky was having a hard time believing himself. “I’m just withholding information.”
“Pertinent information.”
“Sam,” and Bucky sounded miserable enough this time to make Sam really pause. “I’ll lose her. If I tell her the truth. She thinks we made this mistake together. If she finds out I married her sober, she’ll be furious.”
“And she’d be right to.”
“Yeah, I know. Trust me, I know. But, Sam, she’d never speak to me again,” Bucky admitted. “I can’t lose her. Not as my chief of staff, not as my friend. Even if she never feels the same way, I need her in my life and if I tell her the truth I’ll lose her.”
Sam sighed on the other line. “Buck, I’m sorry. I know what this means to you, but this isn’t an ‘if’ she finds out kind of situation, it’s a ‘when’ she finds out.”
“It won’t be forever,” Bucky tried to justify. “Just a respectable amount of time until we can quietly get a divorce. And then things can go back to normal.”
“Do you understand what you’re proposing? That you fake a marriage with your chief of staff who you’re in love with?”
“Well, how hard can it be?”
“You need a psych evaluation.”
Before Bucky could respond, the handle to the bathroom door turned and you emerged from the bathroom covered only in a fluffy white towel. His eyes followed the curve of your neck, the smoothness of your skin. He swallowed, looking away and staring at the ceiling like it had become fascinating.
“Is that Sam?” You asked.
Bucky nodded, putting Sam on speaker. “Yeah, he says there’s already a photo of us outside the chapel circulating.”
You narrowed your eyes. “Who sent it to you?”
“Someone I know who saw it in a private group chat,” Sam replied. “The kind where people send things before they hit the press.”
You crossed to the desk and picked up Bucky’s phone without asking. He let you. You opened the unknown message with the attached photo. There you were, outside the chapel. You were looking up at him, laughing. Bucky stood with the chapel door open, looking at you.
Bucky stopped breathing for half a second. The photograph caught too much, he looked at you like the whole street had gone quiet.
“This is not ideal,” you muttered.
“Understatement of the year,” Sam scoffed through the speaker.
You zoomed in on the photo. “Bad angle.”
Bucky frowned. “What?”
“My left side is better.”
“Are you serious?” Sam said.
“Private group chat means it’ll leak soon,” you said.
“What’s the public version if it leaks?” Sam asked.
“The public version,” you said slowly, “is that we got married privately after the summit.”
Sam made a sound. “That’s it?”
“That’s all they get,” you said. “Bucky is a public figure, I’m staff, people are invasive. We wanted to keep personal matters out of the press.”
“Is that believable?”
You looked at Bucky.
It was too believable, that was part of the problem. The two of you had kept your friendship private in its deepest parts for years. People saw the work, the banter, the sharp comments in hallways. They did not see the late nights, the way you knew when he needed to leave a room, the way he knew when you were lying about being fine.
The public would believe you had hidden a relationship, because, in some ways, you had hidden something. Just not the thing they would think.
“Yes,” you said. “It’s believable.”
Sam was quiet for a moment.
“Can you sell it?”
“I can sell anything,” you shrugged. “If we look panicked, it becomes a scandal. If we look like we made a private choice and intend to remain private, people get bored.”
Sam snorted. “People do not get bored of Bucky Barnes secretly marrying his chief of staff.”
“I’ll give them something more interesting by Tuesday.”
Bucky leaned against the desk.
You were already working. He could see you building the story in your head. It was almost beautiful, in a way that made him uneasy. You had once used that mind to destroy people. Now you used it to protect him. He tried not to think too hard about how much that meant.
“And if people ask how long you’ve been together?”
“Our private life is private,” you said.
Sam groaned. “That’s not an answer. That sounds like an answer you give when the real answer is bad.”
“The real answer is bad.”
“Fair.”
Bucky picked up the certificate. “Chief, we need to decide before it leaks.”
You stared at him. “Decide what?”
“If we’re staying married for now.”
The room went still. You looked at him like he had just placed a loaded gun on the desk. You turned away and walked back to the window, pulling the curtain aside. You just stood there, fingers gripping the fabric.
“I’m not asking you to do this forever,” Bucky said.
“I know.”
“I’m not asking you to do anything you don’t want.”
You laughed once. “That’s the problem with you.”
He frowned. “What is?”
“You make it very hard to accuse you of being the villain.”
Sam was quiet for a long moment. Then he sighed.
“I’m going to let you two talk. Buck, don’t be stupid twice before breakfast.”
The call ended.
Bucky didn’t know what to say.
“Okay,” you said.
“Okay?”
“We wait long enough to see if the photo leaks,” you shrugged. “Long enough to get legal advice, long enough to prevent this from becoming a week-long morality play about whether the former Winter Soldier is fit to choose a spouse.”
Bucky flinched, not much, but you saw it and looked furious with yourself.
“That’s not—”
“I know.”
“No, I didn’t mean—”
“I know.”
Your mouth closed.
For a second, neither of you moved. Then, he folded the hurt away, because that was what Bucky did when there was no safe place to put it.
“Okay,” he said. “We wait.”
You nodded once.
He managed a small smile. “Okay. Good. We have a plan. Now, what does my wife want to eat for breakfast?”
You threw a pillow at him.
